There are a number of technically important endothermic reactions, such as, for example, the production of synthesis gas by the steam reforming of hydrocarbons. These reactions are generally carried out in complex processes, which provide for a large number of individual processing steps. Since the optimal processing conditions, such as pressure or temperature, often deviate greatly from one of the individual process steps to another, it is frequently necessary in practice to carry out the individual process steps under less advantageous conditions, primarily because an optimization of each individual processing step would not result in an optimization of the process as a whole.
A number of such processing steps, such as the adsorptive purification or compression of a gas, are favored by cooling the gas stream. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a process of the type mentioned above in which the process conditions for such processing steps which are favored by a reduction in temperature are improved without having to spend additional energy for this purpose.